


No Love Lost

by AnnieVH



Series: Behind Closed Doors [6]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Minor Character Death, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:17:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2650094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieVH/pseuds/AnnieVH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Milah receives some news from her husband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Love Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to fill this prompt (http://rumbelleprompts.tumblr.com/post/90082568530/rumple-milah-neal-belle-tw-domestic) for a while now, so I decided to do it as one-shots pertaining to the same verse (Behind Closed Doors), since I lack the attention span for multi-chapter. If anybody wants to send me ideas and prompts, I need them very much.
> 
> A companion piece for this picspam (http://annievh.tumblr.com/post/102166515522/behind-closed-doors-warnings-domestic-abuse).
> 
> Pairings for this verse: eventual Rumbelle and Swanfire.  
> Warnings for this verse: abusive relationship, implied non-con situations, child-abuse, violence, infidelity, very anti-Milah.
> 
> A HUGE THANKS to Maddie for betaing it so fast!

Milah decided she didn’t want to go to Malcolm Gold’s funeral, and her husband didn’t ask for an explanation. She knew that having her there would probably make the whole thing easier for him, but it was also her opinion that her father-in-law had been a rotten prick who did not deserve to be mourned. Especially by her.

She put on a black dress as a sign of respect, but that was as far as she’d go for a man who had left them with nothing and who’d often refer to her as “the whore”, and never by her first name. Milah wasn’t even sure he  _knew_ her first name.

The rest of town seemed to feel the same way, because the service was empty. The only exceptions had been Henry Mills and his wife, who had had business with the old man, Gold’s lawyer, the priest, and Rumple. Though Milah wasn’t sure if he had been there to mourn his loss, or to make sure father dearest was really dead.

By the time he returned, night had already fallen and Baelfire had been tucked into bed.

“That was a long service,” she commented, cleaning the dishes and looking over her shoulder.

“Yes,” Rumple replied, absent minded, heading for the couch.

“Not going to offer me a hand?” she said, over the sound of running water. “I’ve made you dinner that you didn’t eat, looked after your son, endured endless condolences the whole day. The very least you could do is offer to wash the dishes, since the water is not even warm.”

She finished the ranting by giving the tap a punch. Nothing in that apartment worked. Sometimes she thinks they should have stayed in the back of the shop, where they had no space, but at least the water in the sink was warm.

Rumple leaned to rest his chin in his hands, as if he couldn’t even hear her.

“Rumple?” she called, but he didn’t answer. She turned off the water and walked to the living room in two small steps. “Are you listening to me?”

When he didn’t answer again, she threw the towel she was using to dry her hands on him. It hit his face with a soft sound, then fell on his shoulder. He made no motion to take it off his wrinkled jacket, but his eyes turned to look for her.

Milah put her hands on her waist and examined his face. The frustration that had been boiling up inside of her for the past few hours gave way to confusion. “Why do you look so miserable?”

The fact that Malcolm Gold Sr. had died didn’t even cross her mind as a motivation for sorrow. When Rumple had been informed by the Sheriff that his father’s heart had finally given in to the stress and the smoking, he went pale and quiet.

“Are you okay, Mr. Gold?” the Sheriff asked.

“I’m not his emergency contact,” Rumple said. To Milah, his voice sounded distant.

The Sheriff had nodded. “No, his lawyer is his emergency contact.”

“Then why am I being informed?”

“You’re his son. I thought you’d want to know.”

Milah, standing right behind her husband, would have liked to point out no one in that house cared much about Mr. Gold Sr, thank you very much. But she didn’t like to let the worst of her temper get to her in front of her son.

Rumple had thanked the Sheriff and spent the rest of the evening with eyes far off and his head in the clouds. Milah had to take care of dinner and Baelfire herself, watching her husband become increasingly distant.

By the time Bae had been tucked into bed, the penny seemed to drop and her husband started weeping. He was very quiet, a hand covering his face, as if he wanted no one to see him grief. But it had been enough to set her off.

“What are you doing?” she asked, coldly.

He looked up, wet eyes looking helplessly at her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“You shouldn’t. That monster did nothing for us.”

“Yes,” he wiped his face. “He wouldn’t be this upset if it had been me.”

Milah looked at him. Then, against her better judgment, leaned over to give him a kiss.

“Maybe life will get better now,” she said.

He nodded. “Yes. I hope so.”

She shouldn’t have let him go to that funeral. If he had been looking gloom the past two days, now he was looking even worse.

“Rumple,” she pressed, when he said nothing, “what is it?”

He swallowed down hard. “I need to tell you something.”

Milah waited.

He continued, “But I’m afraid you are going to leave me once I do.”

Oh.

Oh!

That was it. That was why he had taken so long. He had gone to the pub. And lord knows where else.

“Malcolm Gold,” she started, making her voice as dangerous as she could, “if you cheated on me, I don’t even care if it was just grief, I swear to  _God_ -”

“No!” he all but screamed. “God, Milah, no! You know me better than that.”

“Well, then?” she said, impatiently. Milah did not like the way that conversation was going. Hated not having control over it.

He hesitated again. “I talked… My dad’s lawyer asked to talk to me.”

Milah felt a tight grip around her gut. They had encountered Gold’s lawyer twice before, always for the same reason.

“We are not late this month,” she said. “He cannot evict us.”

“He doesn’t want to evict us.”

She breathed. “Rumple, you’re scaring me, please!”

Rumple rubbed his face and hid his mouth behind his hands again. Mumbled, “Remember when he said he wouldn’t help us? That he wouldn’t give us a thing to help raise our bastard child?”

Milah rolled her eyes and sat in front of him. “It’s hard to forget.”

“He said he would disown me. He wouldn’t leave me a penny. Because I was too much of an idiot and wouldn’t know what to do with money.”

She brushed a strand of hair away from his face. Smiled playfully. “You’re not  _that_  much of an idiot.”

Her husband didn’t move.

“And anyway,” Milah continued, “when did your father ever say a kind word to anybody?”

“He never talked to his lawyer.”

“About what?”

“About disinheriting me.”

Now it was her time to stare.

“He left me everything.”

Milah got up. Walked to the kitchen. Walked all the length from one wall of the apartment to the other. It didn’t take her five full steps. She needed to sit down. She was dizzy. It couldn’t be. It was too good to be true. Good things did not happen to them. To  _her_.

“Your father doesn’t forget this kind of thing,” she said, and realized she was breathless.

Rumple nodded, “No. He did not.”

“He would have called his lawyer the moment we left the house. This is a joke. This is a cruel, cruel joke.”

“I saw the papers. His will was signed fifteen years ago and he never changed it. It’s all mine.”

She still couldn’t get her mind around it. “But he  _hated_  you.”

Rumple flinched. “Yes.”

“He hated me. He hated Baefire, for crying out loud. He wouldn’t be this careless.”

“I don’t think he was.”

“You think it was a sign of constriction?”

Rumple scoffed.

“Right,” Milah nodded. “No, I agree with you. It isn’t like him.” She sat down again and watched him tap his foot on the ground and fidget with his hands. “You do have a theory.”

Rumple thought on it for a moment, and then said, “I think he wanted to show me he was right.”

“About what?”

He didn’t answer.

Milah did the math on her own. “He thought I’d leave you the moment I could take half your money with me.”

Rumple remained silent, looking into her eyes, mouth securely hidden behind his hands where it could barely he heard.

“I did not leave you when you had nothing but a piece of straw to tie around my finger. Why would I leave you now when you have everything?”

She could barely hear his answer. “Because you can.”

“You think your father was right. You think I’m only with you on the off chance you might inherit his money.”

It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t answer.

She slapped him on the side of the head. Not very hard, just enough to make him say, “ _Ouch_! What the-”

“First of all,” she said, loud and offended, “can we agree that would make me the worst gold-digger in the history of gold-digging? I almost resent you for thinking I’d be this bad at planning ahead.”

“I just meant-”

“And secondly! I could have left you at any given moment these past four years –  _with good reason_  – and I did not. Not when we were hungry, not when the water wouldn’t heat, not when your aunts died, not when the baby wouldn’t stop crying, and not when your father threatened to kick us out of town or doubled our rent. I’m still here.”

His eyes watered. “I know.”

“And I’m not leaving.” She threw her arms around him. “I would  _never_  leave you just because things got tough. And I won’t leave you just because I can.”

He tightened his arms around her. His voice lacked all conviction when he said, “I know.”

“Good. And you can’t leave me either now that you’re the most powerful man in town.”

Rumple answered with a little chuckle. “I’m not powerful. I have real estate.”

Milah used her hug to shake him. “Not the answer I wanted to hear.”

“What would I ever leave you for?” he asked, exasperated.

She pouted, though he couldn’t see her. “Someone prettier than me.”

“There’s no one more beautiful than the mother of my child.”

She smiled. “See. I told you you’re not an idiot.”

Rumple smoothed her hair and stood back to look into her eyes. “Thank you.”

She gave him a kiss. “Life just got better, didn’t it?”

He breathed, full of relief. “It did. I think it did.”

**Author's Note:**

> A list of all one-shots in verse chronological order can be found here: http://annievh.tumblr.com/post/102166515522/behind-closed-doors-warnings-domestic-abuse


End file.
